Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

And I respect your lifetime of experience and knowledge. I didn't make it
clear enough that intentional communities are fine by me, people can make
any living arrangements that suit them. What I took issue with was the idea
of the hippie commune, all things in common, nobody responsible - an
untenable lifestyle because only a handful survived at all. Specifically
their claims they were the wave of the future, the only right way to live.
Like, food grows itself without work. 

Understand I'm not sneering at ICs with 3 or 4 members; how others choose
to live isn't my business. What they call a family isn't for me to say.
But that list is calling everybody that lives with someone else they're not
related to an intentional community, from college dorm arrangements to
gated developments. They watered it down so much it's completely
meaningless. What's the point then? That could include millions, most with
nothing to do with living on the land.

But my view is, ownership of land and natural family is the best
arrangement to encourage  stewardship of the land. Others can disagree,
obviously. Joel Salatin said the definition of a successful farm is one
that your children will want passed on to them. He's well known as a very
successful 5th generation farmer on the same land. Family ownership of land
has been traditional worldwide for ages and it's not really financial or
corporate capitalism as we see it today. Extended families on their own
land predates modern capitalism by millennia. It's natural. 

It's my position that only with ownership comes responsibility. It's no
guarantee of sustainable farming or success. But an artificial family
owning agricultural land in common is a prescription for problems because
they can (and do) come and go at will. They have no stake in the future of
it, little incentive to improve the land. They may not even be around next
growing season. Agricultural ICs without natural family ownership simply
don't function to honor and preserve the land for future generations.
That's what I see. 

I'm with Joel Salatin on this one. 
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2006/05/no_bar_code.html?welcome=tru
e

paul, tradingpost@riseup.net
---------------
The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all
our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to
foster its renewal is our only hope.
   - Wendell Berry 
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 7/18/2006 at 8:11 AM Uriel wrote:

>Paul,
>I have enormous respect for the job you do with this list in expanding 
>all our knowledge of living on the land in an intelligent and productive 
>way. But I must question how well you understand the community movement. 
>Having been involved with community for 35 years I've seen a lot and 
>think I've gained some understanding of why communities seem to have had 
>limited success. The biggest single handicap that I've observed (and my 
>own prejudice shows here, I'm sure) is that in order to live in 
>community you have to be able to relinquish many of the concepts of 
>ownership and control that are basic to capitalist philosophy. I do 
>believe that we are seeing the beginning of the demise of international 
>corporate capitalism and that its collapse will result in many changes, 
>eventually, in how the survivors view those concepts.
>
>BTW, you sneer at communities that only have 3 or 4 members. Do you 
>sneer at families that have only 2 or 3 children as failures to 
>reproduce more abundantly? We in community have the luxury of choosing 
>our families and it's an ongoing process that can lead to immensely 
>rewarding experiences and relationships. I would not for anything trade 
>it for the confining environment of the nuclear family that has devolved 
>from the traditional extended family tribal grouping. It is that sense 
>of the tribe that many of us are searching to reproduce as best we can.
>
>Uriel / SW Missouri
>
>TradingPostPaul wrote:
>> Doing more checking to see if there are agricultural ICs I missed in the
>> past. Going through the "A"s, I find  Alpha Farm at Deadwood, Oregon,
and
>> it looks promising. Been around since 1970. Then I scroll down and see
>they
>> have a grand total of 4 adults.